Abstract
A stacked FET, single-stage Q-band CMOS power amplifier (PA) is presented. The design uses series connection of four FETs to avoid breakdown to allow a high drain supply voltage, which in turn allows high output power and a broadband output matching network. The amplifier achieves a saturated output power above 21 dBm while achieving a maximum power-added-efficiency (PAE) above 20 % from 38 GHz to 47 GHz. On-chip shielded coplanar waveguide (CPW) transmission lines as well as metal finger capacitors were used for input and output matching. The IC was implemented in a 45-nm CMOS silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process. The chip occupies an area of 600um x 500um.